The production of mozzarella cheese requires cheese curd to be appropriately prepared by the cooking and stretching thereof prior to solidification as a cheese block. Solidification is achieved and/or accelerated by cooling, one cooling method involving immersion of the cheese curd in a brine solution. A brine solution is necessary or at least preferred to water as bacterial problems can arise with the latter. It is also known to cool cheese curd in a cooling room but this is not considered cost-effective and (ends to take longer than a cooling bath.
A first intention of this invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for the substantially continuous production of mozzarella cheese which will overcome and/or avoid problems which arise with known methods and apparatus or at least provide a useful choice thereto.
Also, for marketing reasons with the production of mozzarella cheese it is desirable to be able to produce the cheese blocks in at least two sizes, traditionally 10 kg and 20 kg blocks and a further intention of this invention is to provide a production method and an apparatus to readily achieve this end.
It is also envisaged that some of the steps involved in the method of this invention may be suitable for utilisation on their own or with other, but not all, of the steps of this method in other methods of manufacturing mozzarella cheese. Similarly some of the features of the apparatus may be so utilised with known mozzarella cheese apparatus. Further, some of the apparatus features and aspects described herein may well be suitable for utilisation in the production of other products.